Have nothing to do with the [evil] things that people do, things that belong to the darkness. Instead, bring them out to the light... [For] when all things are brought out into the light, then their true nature is clearly revealed...

Tag Archives: Terrorism

This article first appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, February 18, 2015:

Section 215 of the Patriot Act is set to expire June 1, and each side in the upcoming battle to renew, reform, or let expire this unconstitutional abridgement of freedoms is rolling out its arguments.

Section 215 is often referred to as the Patriot Act’s “library records” provision because it allows the FBI to order a library or any other source to produce, without a warrant showing probable cause (as required under the Fourth Amendment), all “tangible things” belonging to its target of interest including “books, records, papers, documents, and other items.” That includes books borrowed and websites visited by the target while at the library. Niceties demanded by the Fourth Amendment are ignored in Section 215 as long as the FBI “specifies” that its order is “for an authorized investigation … to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities.”

One of those favoring renewal of Section 215 is Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee:

This article first appeared at The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Friday, January 16, 2015:

Webley Pocket revolver in .38 S&W

On Tuesday a reporter from Newsweek called Rabbi Manachem Margolin to clarify what he meant about Jews owning weapons to defend themselves against terrorist attacks like those perpetrated by armed terrorists in Paris last week. He said:

Just a gun. I’m not referring to tanks. It’s not about heavy weapons. It’s just that everyone should have something in their pocket.

For years Rabbi Margolin – the General Director of the European Jewish Association and the Rabbinical Centre of Europe – the largest federation of Jewish organizations in Europe – has been trying to get European governments to soften their anti-gun stance and allow Jews to carry guns to defend themselves. He told the Washington Free Beacon:

By refusing to hear an appeal from New York Times’ investigative journalist James Risen last week [not to be confused with Fox analyst James Rosen] that his sources for a controversial chapter in his book State of War are protected under the First Amendment and reporters’ “privilege”, the Supreme Court has de facto endorsed its controversial decision from 1972. In that decision, the Court determined that the First Amendment does not give reporters like Risen any reportorial “privilege” in protecting their confidential sources.

If the government moves ahead with its subpoena of Risen to testify or be held in contempt in its case against former CIA agent Jeffrey Sterling, Risen said he would go to jail rather than reveal his sources.

In a strange comment following the Court’s decision not to hear Risen’s appeal, Attorney General Eric Holder, the head of the department bringing the suit against Sterling, said:

September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City: View of the World Trade Center and the Statue of Liberty. (Image: US National Park Service ) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Within days of Congress reauthorizing the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in January 2012, Brian Trautman summarized it perfectly:

This pernicious law poses one of the greatest threats to civil liberties in our nation’s history. Under Section 1021 of the NDAA, foreign nationals who are alleged to have committed or merely “suspected” of sympathizing with or providing any level of support to groups the U.S. designates as terrorist organization or an affiliate or associated force may be imprisoned without charge or trial “until the end of hostilities.”

The law affirms the executive branch’s authority granted under the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) and broadens the definition and scope of “covered persons.”

But because the “war on terror” is a war on a tactic, not on a state, it has no parameters or timetable. Consequently, this law can be used by authorities to detain (forever) anyone the government considers a threat to national security and stability – potentially even demonstrators and protesters exercising their First Amendment rights.

The Washington Post’s Executive Editor Martin Baron anticipated that there would be strong criticism voiced when those opposed to Edward Snowden’s revelations learned of the Pulitzer Prize Committee’s decision to award its prestigious Public Service award to his paper. He may not have estimated the degree and extent and especially the vitriol of that criticism.

Said Baron:

Disclosing the massive expansion of the NSA’s surveillance network absolutely was a public service. In constructing a surveillance system of breathtaking scope and intrusiveness, our government also sharply eroded individual privacy. All of this was done in secret, without public debate…

[Without Edward Snowden’s disclosures] we never would have known how far this country had

The Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR) exhibited its considerable and growing clout by forcing the cancellation of at least two showings of the film “Honor Diaries”, one scheduled for last week at the University of Michigan, the other at the University of Illinois. The film, a 2013 documentary that explores violence against women in “honor-based” societies (read: Muslim countries) through the eyes of nine women with personal experience with that violence, premiered at the Chicago International Film Festival in October 2013. One month later it won the Interfaith Award for Best Documentary at the St. Louis International Film Festival. In December it was featured on DirecTV’s Something to Talk About film series on its Audience channel.

The film focuses on three major crimes of violence committed by those societies, including

With the widely anticipated passing of South African revolutionary leader Nelson Mandela late Thursday, December 5, presidents and dictators from around the world — as well as everyday people, and especially the press — are in mourning. Lost amid the tsunami of praise and adoration, almost canonization even according to some of his supporters, however, is the truth about the man himself, who was, after all,

Early Sunday morning, following four days of heavy negotiations between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (the US, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, and France – plus Germany), an agreement was announced which was touted as lifting sanctions against Iran in exchange for a reduction in Iran’s efforts to build their nuclear capability.

Exasperated at failed attempts by the Mexican government to neutralize the drug cartel that virtually owns the Michoacán state and especially its principal city, Apatzingán, farmers and lime growers and other citizens are banding together into fuerzas autodefensas – self-defense forces – to accomplish the task.

After nearly four years of delays, the military trial of Nidal Malik Hasan, the accused Fort Hood Shooter, begins today with Hasan representing himself against charges of 13 counts of premeditated murder and another 32 counts of attempted murder stemming from the attack on November 5th, 2009.

When Michele Catalano blogged yesterday using the title “Pressure Cookers, backpacks and quinoa, oh my!” it didn’t gain purchase until it was picked up by the Guardian. From there the story jumped to The Atlantic which, 24 hours later, had more than a third of a million views.

The Mayor of Berwyn Heights, Maryland, Cheye Calvo, was taking a shower in his home late Tuesday afternoon, July 29th, 2008 in preparation for a meeting he had that night. He heard a loud explosion at the front door of his home followed by the screaming of his mother-in-law who

Although President Obama says he has many strong candidates to replace Janet Napolitano as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, it’s clear that NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly has the inside track. If Obama is determined to complete building the surveillance state nationally, Kelly is just the man

Saturday’s revelations by the German newspaper Der Spiegel that the US placed bugs in European Union officials’ offices in New York and Washington and hacked into EU headquarters in Brussels have ignited a firestorm of indignation among German and European officials. Coming on the heels of the FISA court’s ruling in April that Verizon must turn over telephone records to the National Security Agency and Edward Snowden’s exposure in June of PRISM that has been vacuuming up American citizens’ internet communications for years, expressions of outrage were heard from German and European Union politicians.

Now that the source of the leak published last week in the Washington Posthas identified himself, the response from defenders of the surveillance state was immediate and predictable. Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old employee of a National Security Agency (NSA) contractor, Booz Allen Hamilton, hoped that with the election of President Obama in 2008 the erection of the surveillance state in American would at least be partially dismantled. When it was clear that the infrastructure of that vast intelligence community and its increasingly threatening capabilities was

I watched with fascination and admiration not only at Senator Rand Paul’s message but his stamina! I used to do some public speaking and once in a while I was allowed to say what I came to say without a time limitation. Those were rare occurrences indeed,